1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer aided design (CAD). More specifically, the present invention relates to computer assistance to a designer on working with geometric constraints of a mechanical design.
2. Background Information
Most mechanical designs require a designer to manipulate geometric constraints between different geometry pieces of a mechanical design. An example of a geometric constraint is a vertical or horizontal orientation to be maintained for a line. Another example is a perpendicular relationship to be maintained between two lines. Yet another example is a tangential relationship to be maintained between a line and an arc. For the purpose of this application, a line, an arc, etc. of a mechanical design shall be generically referred to as geometry pieces of the mechanical design.
Generally, only limited support are provided by conventional mechanical design software on geometric constraint manipulation by a designer. Typically, the support is limited to the simultaneous display of all geometric constraints of all geometric pieces of a mechanical design at the same time. Thus, even when the geometric constraints are represented by graphical icons and xe2x80x9cminimizedxe2x80x9d, the display still tends to be cluttered and not very user friendly. Moreover, there is no easy way for the designer to delete or retarget a geometric constraint, without inputting a sequence of commands, which often requires a large number of key strokes. Thus, a more user friendly approach for manipulating geometric constraints is desired. As will be described in more details below, the present invention achieves these and other desirable objectives, which will be apparent from the disclosure to follow.
Computer instructions that operate to automatically facilitate a user in manipulating geometric constraints associated with a first piece of geometry of a mechanical design, when executed, are disclosed. The executing computer instructions operate to facilitate the manipulation responsive to a location of a cursor, when the location is within a predetermined proximity of the first piece of geometry. In one embodiment, the computer instructions are part of a mechanical design software application. In one embodiment, the mechanical software application including the computer instructions are embodied in a distribution storage medium.